Stearman build

Progress has been limited recently but now had some time in the workshop. Fabricated the parts for the fwd Cabane struts, doesn't look much but many hours went into planning and producing these.

The first 2 pic shows just the alloy exterior trims in place.
The third pic shows the exterior trims and the internal struts which will provide the strength. They will be laminated from 2 lengths of 0.5mm Stainless either side of 2mm T6 alloy. The accompanying drawing is a reduction from the full size drawings. I know they have 6 rivet holes and i have only 4 but i have to apply some practicality.
The last pic is the jig i made to drill the fixing holes

Thank you for the detailed description and photos Kevin. Until now I'd assumed that the cabanes were either bent up alloy strips or piano wire covered in balsa. It'll be a shame to cover up all that work!

Hi Brian - Solid alloy cabanas are the norm for this and similar models, but due to some hardware shortages i thought why not make life difficult and build more scale like cabanes - hence all this work and brain overload.

While Mike builds a whole glider in a week, my attempts to scale up and re-engineer of the Cabane Struts is slowly progressing

Lovely work Kevin!

Ive rigged the Cabane with temporary wires to establish final lengths.
Making these mods may not seem difficult but must say its the most challenging modelling task ive ever done. However, I delighted thats its incredibly rigid.